Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own shit.
She is six when she performs alchemy for the first time. Her father stands over her watching, demanding. The transfiguration itself is not the greatest feat - a small, crudely shaped wooden doll. It's form is only halfway complete before she loses control of the array and collapses. Later on, when she sees her unfinished creation, she thinks it disfigured, grotesque.
But it is still enough to put a glint in her father's eye.
By the time she is eight she is well on her way to becoming a master of alchemy. Her father does not allow her to attend school. Instead, she lives and breathes alchemy, growing steadily under his tutelage. His lessons are harsh and unrelenting, and by all means she ought to hate the thing that drives him to madness, but alchemy is beauty beyond words, and she finds herself helplessly entranced. It is the meeting of science and art, and infinite in its power to create and re-create. Alchemy is everything beautiful in her world, it is her lifeblood and her passion, and somehow, it allows her mind and soul to breathe, despite her circumstances.
That same year she begins her mischevious streak - transmuting her father's shoes a size smaller, creating colorful garden gnomes from the fence-planks in the yard, turning the neighbor's cat red - she finds her own amusement worth her father's wrath. Even so, she learns to keep her pranks subtle. She is still dancing to her father's tune.
He was a military man once, and a great alchemist engaged in a broad range of research. He lost both his brother, and his arm while trying to apprehend a dangerous criminal, and having been declared incompatible with automail, both losses remained permanent. Grieving and crippled, he was rendered unable to perform alchemy.
And it drove him mad.
Desperate, he turned his attention to his still-young daughter, having some deluded fantasy that, though unable to do so himself, he could still perform alchemy through her. As the years passed, his mania only heightened as she continued to progress in her learning.
She knew nothing of her mother other than her absence.
By the time she was ten, she had learned to hide her progress from her father, and had begun conducting her own alchemical experiments. Inspired by an obscure text, one of the many in the house's expansive library, she had begun experimentation with electricity. Her first array created little more than a spark before sputtering out anticlimactically. Her second was much more successful, and she generated enough electricity to burn a fresh green leaf to a crisp. She did not progress very far, however, before her father made his move.
That same year, he decided she was ready. She was confused when he brought her to the basement lab only to be greeted with a completed array covering most of the ground. She quietly examined the array in more detail as he began to gather more materials, puzzling over its meaning. She paled as she recognized its components. Her father was there, holding her arm in a vice grip before she could even think to run. She listened, shaking, as he explained what he expected of her, and the consequences if she failed to complete her task. She ran as soon as he released her, and was brought back, struggling, with a newly broken arm. It did not take long before his threats began to encompass the other members of her little world - the nice lady down the street who came by sometimes to give her hard candies, the neighbor boy who taught her how to whistle, the mailman with whom she had struck up a tentative friendship.
In the end she caved.
He hovered over her as she performed the task with clenched fists, tracing the array reverently with his remaining hand. She breathed deeply before channeling power into the circle, filling the air with crackling energy.
And then it all went wrong.
Her father railed against the gate, demanding the return of his brother. She simply stood before it, trembling, but with steel still in her eyes. She remained silent until the gate demanded a price.
"Take him," her voice was hard. "I don't want to be here. I never wanted to be here. You demand equivalence? Take him."
The gate considered her for a moment. "You think you know equivalence little alchemist? You think you can dictate our exchange?" It smiled, "I think not."
She screamed in fury and in agony as she was sent spiraling back into reality, blood seeping from the shoulder that once housed an arm. Her father was gone, her arm was gone, and there was some sort of thing lying crumpled in the center of the array, breathing ragged breaths. She fought through a haze of pain and slowly worked her way up the stairs and out of the house, finally losing consciousness in the road after startling the paper-boy off his bike.
When she awoke again, cold in a crisp white clinic bed, she was scarred and alone, but she was free. According to the doctor, who spoke to her with pity etched into his lined face, she had the option of seeking an automail replacement for her missing right arm, but she 'ought to wait and recuperate for a good while before giving it a try.' The doctor also explained in a gentle voice that a social worker would be arriving soon to help her figure out her situation.
She left the next day before they could find her missing.
Nearly eleven now, alone and wounded, she headed out into the world with the clothes on her back and a doctor's stolen wallet. She drifted from place to place for a few months, hitching rides on the backs of random supply trucks or in abandoned train cars, performing petty magic tricks to earn her keep, and stealing where that failed.
She had been traveling for five months when she arrived in Dublith on the back of a hay wagon, and was caught, two days after her arrival, picking pockets by the local butcher. And so, at the tender age of eleven, Joan Blackburn met Izumi Curtis - a meeting that would forever change her life and, by consequence, the lives of many others.
So, wow, it's been awhile since I've done any creative writing. I mean a while. Honestly, I'm probably too busy to strike up a new project now, and this is a terrible idea, but I just wasn't able to stop myself. My intent for this story is to establish a sort-of older sister figure for the Elrics, and to experiment with how she would fit into the world of FMA. I also have vague plans of maybe developing something between her and Mustang and co. I'm not primarily a romance writer, though, so don't get too excited on the Mustang front. Anything romance (no promises) that does develop will likely be secondary to the plot. I'm also generally disenchanted with the way female characters are often depicted in fanfiction, and literature in general, so you can expect some badass (and actually realistic) women in this fic - I have a lot of frustration to work out there. Anyway, let me know if you think this is interesting enough for me to continue. I will probably not feel very driven to update unless poked with a few (proverbial) sticks (i.e. reviews).
- Hope